Tag: Oreo

Monday, December 20th, 2010

Peppermint Cheesecake Bars

Oreo crust recipe from Recipe Girl

Can you guys really believe that Christmas is this weekend? Are you all ready? Do you have all of your baking done? I am so glad to be able to say that I am.

A few years ago I put cheesecake bars on my holiday trays and they went over really well. Cheesecake can be such a rich dessert that sometimes it’s nice to have just a small bar instead of an entire piece. Since I have been on a big peppermint kick this year I decided to continue by making a peppermint cheesecake. I went back and forth on whether or not I should do a classic round cheesecake or the bars, but I am glad i settled on the bars. I think a graham cracker crust would work well with these bars, but the oreo cookie crust really makes them delicious. I used my basic cheesecake recipe, and if you have a favorite recipe you could certainly use that. I honestly found myself craving these bars the more and more I ate them, so hopefully they will end up as part of your Christmas celebration this weekend. Enjoy!

Peppermint Cheesecake Bars
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20 Oreo cookies, crushed
¼ cup butter, melted
1 Tbsp sugar
3 (8 oz) packages cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 large eggs
¼ tsp peppermint extract
½ cup peppermint baking chips
3-4 drops red food coloring

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine crushed cookies, melted butter and sugar. Press into bottom of a 9×13 baking pan. Place in oven and bake for 8 minutes to set crust. In a medium sized bowl beat together cream cheese and sugar. Add vanilla. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each egg. Make sure you scrape the sides of the bowl with a spoon or spatula to fully incorporate all of the ingredients. Add peppermint extract. Pour out ¾ cup of batter and add 3-4 drops of red food coloring. Add peppermint baking chips to the remaining (white) batter. Pour over crust and spread out to the edges. Drop pink batter onto white batter by spoonfuls, then run a knife through batter to get a marbled effect (be careful to not go too deep and disturb the crust). Place in oven and bake for 45-50 minutes.

Tags: Bars, Cheesecake, chocolate, Christmas, Oreo, Peppermint

Posted in Bars, Cheesecake | 1 Comment »

Monday, October 25th, 2010

Halloween Oreo Cupcakes

I know that I may get a lot of flack for saying this, but I am not a huge fan of Halloween. It’s not that I hate it or anything, it just doesn’t come anywhere close to Christmas in my mind. I did dress up this year (a “dress as your name” theme, I was Amy Winehouse!), but you won’t find a single Halloween decoration around my house. I much prefer to decorate for Fall in general and leave the decorations up for longer.

All of that being said, it doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy baking for Halloween (or eating Halloween candy). I really struggled with what to make this year. Brownies? Blondies? Cake? Since cupcakes seem to be all the rage in the baking and blogging worlds I settled on those. But what kind? How to decorate them?? So many decisions!! The number 1 Google search sending people to the site has been ‘oreo cupcakes’, so that made my decision for me. The last oreo cupcakes I made were the hugely popular strawberry golden oreo cupcakes and I mixed pieces of the cookies into the batter, but this time I wanted to try placing an entire oreo at the bottom of the cupcake. Obviously I had to use the Halloween Oreos, plus make an oreo buttercream. I originally intended to use a chocolate cupcake, but when I went to make them I discovered I didn’t have any chocolate cake mix in the pantry (don’t you hate that!). I still wanted to do something to make them a little more “Halloweeny” (is that a word?) so that’s when I decided to use the Nutter Butter cookies to make ghosts. I have never had good luck dipping things in chocolate, and my luck certainly continued. I dipped half of each Nutter Butter into vanilla flavored Candy Quick melting chocolate. For the most part it worked well but I can never seem to get everything smooth and perfect. The eyes of the ghosts are mini chocolate chips, which should be placed on the ghosts right after dipping, before the chocolate begins to harden. They stood up in the Oreo buttercream nicely, and added a nice extra treat to the cupcakes. Enjoy!

Halloween Oreo Cupcakes
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1 box yellow (or chocolate) cake mix
Ingredients listed on box + 1 extra egg
24 Halloween oreos
1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar
5 Tbsp milk
7 regular oreos
12 Nutter Butter cookies
1 package vanilla Candy Quick for melting (or any other white chocolate of choice)
72 mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together cake mix, water, oil and eggs. Place a Halloween Oreo into the bottom of each cupcake liner (18-24 depending on how big you plan on making each cupcake). Pour batter over oreos, filling each liner approximately 2/3 full. Bake for approximately 20-25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.

Meanwhile, in a medium sized bowl cream together butter and vanilla. Add powdered sugar in one cup increments, then add milk to thin. Crush the 7 oreos (more or less depending on your taste) in a food processor, then mix into buttercream. Frost cupcakes when cool.

To make ghosts, melt Candy Quick in microwave for one minute. Remove from microwave and stir until smooth. Cut Nutter Butter cookies in half and dip each into the chocolate. Place on parchment paper to set. Immediately place 3 mini chocolate chips onto each cookie to form eyes and nose. Once set place a “ghost” on top of each cupcake.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

~I’m sharing this recipe over at Delicious Dishes, Cupcake Tuesday and All Halloween Bash~

Tags: Buttercream, Cupcakes, Fall recipes, Halloween, Oreo

Posted in Cupcakes | 40 Comments »

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Strawberry Golden Oreo Cupcakes

Recipe by Aimee

Do you guys like Dairy Queen? While I have to admit that Cold Stone Creamery wins hands down for me, I still enjoy a good DQ blizzard every once in a while. Derek is a fan of all things strawberry, so when the blizzard of the month in June was strawberry golden oreo he was dying to try it. I took the advice of a coworker and ordered extra golden oreo, and it was delicious! Now, me being who I am, I of course thought “I bet I can make a cupcake out of this”, and that was how these were born.

Like all of the cupcakes I’ve created, I try to make them as simple as possible. I used a box of strawberry cake mix and made it according to directions. I got my idea for the oreo filling from Annie and quartered the oreos then placed them in the dough. I also considered just placing an oreo at the bottom of each cupcake, which I may try in the future. For the time being I was pretty happy with how these turned out. The frosting is a basic vanilla buttercream and I drizzled some caramel on top for extra flair.

I have to say that when I first bit in to the cupcake I was really surprised. When baked the golden oreos have a different flavor than I was expecting. To me, it was similar to maple syrup or french toast. This flavor combined with the strawberry, and the sweetness of the frosting and caramel was a really great combination (think french toast with strawberries and whipped cream!) Enjoy!

Strawberry Golden Oreo Cupcakes

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Cupcakes:
1 Box strawberry cake mix (I used Pillsbury)
1 cup water
1/3 cup oil
4 eggs
24 Golden Oreos, quartered

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine cake mix, water, oil and eggs. Mix in oreos gently to avoid breaking up the pieces too much. Pour into cupcake liners, filling them about 2/3 full. Bake approximately 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Frosting (adapted from Wilton):
1 cup shortening
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla
6 cups powdered sugar (more or less to taste)
1 Tbsp milk
Hershey’s Caramel Syrup for drizzle

Cream together shortening and butter, then add vanilla. Add powdered sugar in one cup increments, mixing well after each addition. Mix in milk (add more or less until the desired consistency is reached). Frost cupcakes and drizzle with caramel syrup if desired.

Tags: Buttercream, Oreo, strawberry

Posted in Cupcakes | 12 Comments »